The following background is provided to assist in understanding the invention. Specimens (biological material such as blood, urine, tissues) are obtained from patients and routinely placed in tubes, vials or other collection apparatus and sent to testing laboratories to obtain test results that are reported back to the patient generally through a physician for medical decision making for a patient.
Larger specimen testing laboratories receive a variety of specimens in a variety of types of test tubes (or vials) in a variety of test tube sizes (or vial sizes). These laboratories generally have a specimen processing department that get the specimens ready for the laboratory testing areas. The specimen processing department generally places the specimen into the lab information system (LIS) by creating a specimen identification number in the LIS and a barcode label with the specimen identification on the specimen tube that is used to track the specimen and report the testing results back to the patient. These laboratories generally have many testing instruments (number and variety) that are located over a large square foot facility. The facility is generally segmented into laboratory departments based on the tests and instruments. It is extremely difficult (if not impossible) to have conveyors moving specimen samples to all the various instruments over the large area of the laboratory departments and facility.
Many specimens need to be sorted into particular testing groups in the specimen processing department (example: test code) and hand carried to the particular instrument group performing the testing in the individual testing departments. The specimens are hand sorted to groups or test codes. This requires many resources to perform the hand sorting.
Once the specimens are hand sorted, they are generally hand wanded (the information related to the tube is obtained from the specimen barcode through a barcode reader and placed in a batch or to a location for tracking) and taken to lab area and particular instrument for testing. (The process of hand wanding specimens from the barcode is very labor intensive and requires many resources to perform this task)
The wanded specimens are generally hand wanded to a rack position (operator hand wands the specimen from the barcode label on the tube through a barcode reader and places the specimen in a particular location on a rack so that the specimen can be located later) for tracking. The racks vary is size based on the volume of tests that are to be performed and the batch size for the instrument performing the test. Many racks only have a few specimens wanded to the rack that is taken to the lab and blank positions remain on the fixed racks that are taken to the departments and instruments. (The hand wanding and racking of specimens is very labor intensive and requires many resources to perform this task)
The racked specimens are then generally transported to the labs and instruments on carts. The carts hold various racks with some racks containing only a few specimens for testing. (The racking of specimens are very inefficient and require many racks that do not utilize the full rack size. Many racks are delivered to the departments with only a few specimens on the rack. The rack is not utilized efficiently and it occupies a large amount of space in the labs)
Once the specimens are transported to the labs and instruments on carts, the lab operators generally build testing batches from the specimens. The batches generally contain controls (low and/or medium and/or high target standards that are used to verify that the instrument is testing the batch properly) and may contain repeats (specimens that are re-tested) from prior testing batches. The specimens on the testing batches are generally hand wanded to the batch location for tracking and proper reporting of test results. Some specimens are run on instruments that do not need batching as the volume allows for more continuous flow or the instrument wands the specimens as they are tested. In these cases the specimens are sometimes hand wanded in the department to identify the location of the specimen prior to testing for tracking purposes. Tracking is critical for specimens in a laboratory to reduce the likelihood that a specimen will be lost. Lost specimens is a critical metric that all labs track. A lost specimen generally requires that a patient have the specimen re-drawn. For some specimens this is impossible since the specimens are irreplaceable. (The hand wanding of specimens from the barcode label on the specimen tube with a barcode reader in the laboratory prior to testing is extremely labor intensive are requires many laboratory operator resources to perform this task)
Most laboratories have manual specimen processing departments that are described above. In some laboratories that have automated specimen processing areas, sorting is done by robots or other sorting systems. Some of the specimens in test tubes or other container apparatus are sometimes moved on a conveyor using a specimen holding device. His holding device is sometimes called a ‘puck’. The ‘puck’ is generally used to move samples of a specimen type that is going to one specific instrument type for testing. The ‘puck’ or other holding device will generally move the specimen sample in the tube to a particular instrument for patient result testing. Laboratory workers place the specimens on the pucks while they move on the conveyor belt. The specimens move on the conveyor to a particular specimen testing instrument where the specimen is used in providing a patient test result.
After the specimen is removed from the tube and used in the testing process, a laboratory worker or robot removes the specimen tube from the ‘puck’ on the conveyor and the ‘puck’ generally loops around so that a laboratory worker can reload the now empty ‘puck’ with a new specimen tube. These puck applications are very limited to only very limited instruments that are performing very limited numbers of patient tests. Sorting is only to a few instruments and the instruments are continuous feed high volume flow instruments that do not have batched specimens for testing. The specimen is generally sorted by the barcode on the tube through a barcode reader station that is placed on the conveyor. The puck is rotated at each sort location and the barcode is read. If the specimen can be tested at the particular instrument, the specimen in the puck is directed to the instrument with a gate on the conveyor. These systems can generally sort only to a few instruments and are very expensive and complex.
‘Pucks’ generally do not have RFID chips in them used to hold information related to the specimen sample it is carrying. ‘Pucks’ are generally not used to sort samples by particular testing group or test code. ‘Pucks’ generally do not form into racks that can be carried to various lab areas and instruments for testing. ‘Pucks’ are generally not used for high speed and high density sorting (sorting to many different sorting locations that are required for larger or mid sized laboratories that have many different instruments and tests to perform) of specimens. ‘Pucks’ are generally not small in diameter. ‘Pucks’ generally have many pieces that are assembled to make them costly to manufacture and produce.
Once the specimen is sorted by the robot or other sorting systems, the process of wanding, racking, transporting, and tracking the specimens is manual and is the same as described above for the non-automated specimen processing department laboratories.
Current binding stations have mechanical systems and electrical sensors to locate specimen pucks on the conveyor and hold them fixed on the conveyor belt while holding the pucks and allowing 1 specimen puck into the barcode reading position at a time.
Current binding stations have mechanical systems and electrical sensors to hold the specimen puck fixed at the barcode reading position and to turn the puck in the fixed position while the barcode from the tube is being read and linked to the RFID unique identification numbers on the chip.
Current binding stations have many mechanical parts and sensors that are difficult to assembly.
Current binding stations have significant down time to maintain all the many mechanical and electronic parts in the station.
Current binding stations are expensive and more costly to manufacture and assemble based on the many mechanical and electrical parts.
Current binding stations have significant maintenance cost and are more costly to maintain because of the more downtime and the more mechanical and electrical parts that are required to maintain the current binding station system
Current binding stations have a long binding time because of the time to hold the specimen and rotate the specimen in a fixed position. The mechanical parts must hold the puck, then rotate the puck, then release the puck. This time is lengthy and not continuous.
Current binding stations have a limited capacity and have limited throughput based on the time it takes to bind. This reduced throughput is because of the time it takes to hold the specimen puck and rotate the puck and release the puck.
By having a binding station that is continuous and allows the specimen transport puck to move continuously on a continuous conveyor while the barcode is read on the specimen tube and the information is transferred to the RFID chip in the RFID specimen transport puck. This process method allows for much fewer mechanical and electrical parts, is easier to maintain, is lower in cost to manufacture and assemble and has a fast capacity and throughput based on the continuous process method.